Values, Motivation, and Purpose
Overview
- The unit begins with a mindfulness moment scripted by you or one of your peers that you drafted in the unit 6 bridge exercise.
- This unit continues with a discussion about motivation and how values can help you stay on your path regardless of stressful events.
- This session wraps up with the opportunity to identify five top values that you use to guide your life and then use those values to help you complete your bridge exercises.
Unt 7 introduces the concepts of motivation, meaning, and purpose by discussing values and their role in your life.
Bridge Exercises
Why This Matters: Once you identify your values, you can reflect on how your values affect your life and choices.
Understanding values and where they come from is helpful in providing direction in making decisions in our lives. You may find yourself asking questions about your values. What are they? Do they guide the way you live your life?
Reflect on your values and determine how closely they guide the choices you make in life currently.
- Using the dart board image on the slide, write the five values you identified during Unit 7 around the outside of the board.
- Draw one dart near each value (five total). If you rely on a value consistently to make decisions and navigate life, draw that value’s dart in the bullseye. If you don’t rely on a value often to make decisions, draw that value’s dart in an outer ring of the board. Draw darts in the other rings to identify any values that you use occasionally.
Why This Matters: Although values are learned from others, everyone has unique experiences with those values. Learning about other captains and how they operate is helpful in furthering your understanding of how your values affect you.
Knowing what you value can be very helpful when making decisions. It also can be helpful to have other people’s perspective about what they value. This is an opportunity to talk with someone who may have some same values as you as well as some different values as you to help you gain perspective on different things being important to different people.
- Talk with the captain of another boat about their values. The captain could be a family member or peer you’re comfortable having this conversation with. In a notebook, take notes about any similarities or differences between your values and those of the other captain.
- The values of others may differ from your own. There is no right or wrong answer because values are learned and experienced differently by everyone. And that is ok!
- Now that you’ve talked with another captain about their values, it might give you even more perspective on your own values. Write some notes about how your values may be helpful as you navigate college and also when you transition to a next phase of your life.
Remember that the lessons you learn from others may not serve as a perfect map for navigating your life — but understanding others’ experiences can help you prepare for your journey.
Why This Matters: Identifying what gives your life meaning can be a difficult and somewhat scary task without guidance. And, this often evolves over time. This activity is meant to help you think about it but there is no pressure to have it all it figured out!
The link below has several activities you can complete to help identify things in your life that give you purpose. Read through them, reflect, and then write any key takeaways and post in your discussion board.
Unit 7 Survey
Answer the following questions about your experience with Unit 7.
This survey has been completed